


cygnets in a row

by steponthegaslys



Series: of mute swans and nests [2]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Body Image, Bullying, Gen, Minor Character Death, Prequel, References to Depression, Suicide, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28461807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steponthegaslys/pseuds/steponthegaslys
Summary: detailing pierre and esteban's time together at ballet school.
Relationships: Pierre Gasly & Esteban Ocon
Series: of mute swans and nests [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084739
Comments: 28
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this is a little prequel to of mute swans and nests - i'd recommend you read that one first as it explains a lot of things here but yeah, here you go!

Esteban had been seven when he’d found ballet.

He’d been at his grandparents in Spain for Christmas, the TV had been left on as the adults had chatted after watching  _ Sorteo de la Loteria _ , and the next thing that came on had been a performance of The Nutcracker, and he’d been entranced.

“That’s Fernando Alonso, baby,” his grandmother had told him, coming to sit cross legged next to him on the floor and tugging him into her lap once his family had realised how into the performance he’d been. “Spain’s finest. He’s going to be a star.”

“You know him, abuela?” Esteban asked, watching as the man on screen turned faster than a spinning top, and jump high like he was on a trampoline, even though Esteban knew he couldn’t possibly be.

“A little bit. Everyone in Spain knows him a little bit,” she’d smiled, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. 

“At least ballet is cheaper than karting,” he’d heard his Papa sigh from behind them a little later, after they’d found it completely impossible to peel Esteban away from the TV to eat dinner, instead having to put his plate on his lap as the ballet entered its third act, 

“Lets hope he prefers it,” his mother had agreed.

* * *

  
  


His parents had enrolled him into ballet classes after the christmas holidays, a small studio in Evreux.

It had quickly grown - from one class on a saturday morning initially, to four classes a week within a few months. His teacher had told his parents that he was talented, that he’d probably be best served by going to Jean Alesi’s school in Rouen to be assessed, to see if he might be a good candidate for going to a professional ballet school, maybe even Paris Opera.

“Don’t be offended if it’s a no, Jean has always been very honest,” his first teacher had warned him after class before the first time he’d gone and seen Alesi. “But if he says you can do it, then you can _definitely_ do it, okay?”

Alesi’s school was like nothing he’d ever seen before - housed in one of the half timbered buildings that Rouen was well known for, with white walled studios and glimmering ballet barres lining them, a far cry from the church hall in which he’d been learning up until that point. The class he’d been asked to try had been all boys as well, where before Esteban had been the only boy in his class, and the exercises were different, more focused on boys and how boys needed to dance, instead of dances geared towards girls skipping with flower baskets and pretty scarves.

And Monsieur Alesi had pushed him, had crouched next to him and poked his legs to get him to turn them out properly, had taken hold his foot to make him use his arch properly, had focused on technique and using his feet, and Esteban had  _ loved _ it, had loved being told how to do ballet like Alonso had, how to jump high and make it look beautiful.

“He said you have talent, Este,” his papa had told him when he’d been helping in the garage the following morning. It hadn’t been much, just rolling tyres towards his papa when he was asked for them, and standing back to watch him put the tyres on the car he was working. His papa had let him try to do it himself once, on one of the scrapper cars that were out in the back yard, then laughed and said it was a good job that Esteban had never wanted to be a mechanic. “Do you like it more than karting? Is it what you want to try more of?”

Esteban hadn’t hesitated before nodding, because he hadn’t even thought about the kart that had been sitting at the side of his papa’s garage, gathering dust for months now. “I like ballet, papa.”

  
“Am I okay to sell the kart? Then we can keep taking you to Monsieur Alesi?” asked his papa, and Esteban had nodded furiously.  _ Anything  _ to keep going to ballet, anything to keep learning properly. 

* * *

His mama had been the one to take him to Monsieur Alesi the first time he’d met Pierre. His papa had to work late in the garage that night - he’d been working late a little more, Esteban had known that - so it wasn’t his usual routine of talking to his papa in the car on the 45 minute drive to Rouen, telling him about school and ballet classes and that he’d watched the Paris Opera perform on TV with his mama, and that he  _ definitely _ wanted to go to their school, wanted to dance in the Palais Garnier with them.

He’d been sitting with his mama in changing room, letting her adjust the straps of his ballet shoes because Monsieur Alesi had said that he should try having two elastics crossed to make his feet look better and he wasn’t  _ quite _ used to how to put the shoes on with two elastics now, when he’d heard a happy voice call, “Sabrina?”

And his mama had whipped around and immediately got chatting to a lady with bobbed dark hair and a silky satin blouse, and a nervous looking blonde boy behind her holding her hand. 

“This is Pierre, my youngest,” Pascale Gasly had said, nudging Pierre out from behind her back. “Dr Legrand suggested ballet might be a good idea for him, has your Esteban doing it long?”

“For a few months now,” his mama had explained, as Pierre had looked up at his mother before over at Esteban. “We’ve not long come to Alesi though.”

“Jean-Jacques has known Jean for a long time, he insisted we brought Pierre when we told him,” said Pascale, and it had felt so  _ weird _ to Esteban to hear Monsieur Alesi be called his first name, because nobody had really done that in front of him except ballet teachers. “He’s a little bit of a strange man, isn’t he? Has a little bit of a temper.”   


“I think he must behave himself better at work,” said his mama with a laugh. “We’ve had no trouble with him.”   
  


“Must be a first,” laughed Pascale, before going to help Pierre get changed.

Pierre had looked hesitant as they’d lined up to enter the class, but Monsieur Alesi had come up and patted his blonde hair, and told him, “Just follow Esteban, okay? He knows what to do,” and Esteban had felt so  _ proud _ .

  
  


* * *

  
  


Pierre had been less nervous after coming to a few classes, had stopped clinging to his mama so much before and after them, and Esteban had started to really like him. They’d talk about lots of things, about Paris Saint Germain, and whether Armand was the best player ever, and they’d talk more than anything about ballet.

At school, people didn’t really understand why he was driving to Rouen most nights now, why he was doing ballet. People called it gay, or said that it was something boys shouldn’t be doing, or that Esteban was just plain  _ weird _ for doing it. But he felt more normal now, seeing Pierre get sucked into it just like he did, talking about whether the other watched the show about Alain Prost on TV the night before.

“Can he come back later tonight? For a conditioning class?” he’d heard Monsieur Alesi ask his papa one evening, and Esteban’s heart had sunk, because he knew his papa had work until late that night, and he probably wouldn’t be able to bring him back from Evreux.

  
“I’m not sure if we can make that work,” admitted his father, and this disappointment in Monsieur Alesi’s face had felt devastating to Esteban.

“What if Esteban came to ours between classes?” Pascale had offered. “We only live a few streets away. We’ll bring him back here with Pierre, and you can get him after.” 

“Are you sure?” his papa had checked, and Pascale had smiled and nodded.

“I’m sure they’ll just end up playing, they won’t get in our hair too much,” she’d smiled.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Esteban had never been anywhere in Rouen except the ballet school, but it hadn’t seemed so scary to be out on the streets of the city when Pierre had insisted on pointing everything out to him as they walked along. 

“And that’s where my brother does swimming, and that’s where I go to school, and that’s where Monsieur Alesi lives,” Pierre had rambled as they walked along, his mother following behind them.

“That one?” asked Esteban, looking up at a huge building across the road.

“Not all of it. He has a little house inside the big house,” Pierre explained.

“An apartment, baby. Not a little house,” Pascale had laughed from behind them. 

“What’s it like in there?” asked Esteban, walking along with Pierre. “Does he have loads of ballet stuff?”

“He barely has any ballet stuff. It’s so  _ boring _ ,” sighed Pierre. “Sometimes I go with papa when he forgets something at golf and Monsieur Alesi picks it up for him. There’s nothing fun there. No barre, no piano, no nothing. Just golf.”

“Is golf really boring?” asked Esteban.

“ _ So _ boring. Only old papas do it,” nodded Pierre. “Don’t they mama?”   
  


“Your papa will have a fit if he hears you calling him old,” laughed Pascale. “But it’s a little boring, yes.”

Pierre’s house was much bigger than Esteban’s, though Pierre had told him that he had five brothers so he’d guessed it would be. “Most of them have gone to university now, there’s only Phillipe who hasn’t yet,” Pierre told him, leading him upstairs once they were in the house. “But he’s at swimming, so it’s just us. Do you want to go play playstation?”

“What’s a playstation?”   
  


“You don’t know what a playstation is?” gasped Pierre, before tugging him by the hand towards his room. “I’ve got to show you!”

* * *

  
  


Visits to Pierre’s house became a weekly occurrence at minimum after that, especially in the run up to their very first dance show. They’d been cast as mice in Cinderella, Alesi had got them to audition to do a few shows with the Rouen Ballet, and they’d go from the theatre, to Pierre’s, and then to Monsieur Alesi, and then to the theatre again to perform at night. 

It was just a lot easier than going back and forth to Evreux, and his parents could drop him off in the morning and come back to watch a performance if there was one that night, and Pierre’s parents didn’t seem to mind at all, not with how good Esteban seemed to be at keeping Pierre out of their hair. 

“What do you mean you don’t practice at home?” Esteban had asked in shock one day when he’d asked Pierre to show him where he’d been practicing. Pierre was different to him when he danced - where Esteban was more focused with his feet, Pierre always seemed to be able to pick up on how a port de bras should look instantly, how to make his dancing look effortless.

“It’s so boring practicing at home,” laughed Pierre, shrugging. “I don’t know. How am I meant to copy you doing the exercises at home?”

“You know the exercises now, you can’t copy forever,” said Esteban, giving him a shove off the bed. “Come on. Show me how to do the port de bras like you do them.”

“I don’t know how I do them,” Pierre had pouted, but he’d done his best to show Esteban anyway, before dragging Esteban off to go on the swingset in the background.

“Do you think you’re going to audition for the Opera?” Pierre had asked him, as he stood on the swing seat and reached up to try and climb onto the metal bar on the top of it. “Monsieur Alesi told my papa you might.”

“You know Monsieur Alesi will kill you if you fall off the top of that when we have a performance tonight, right?” asked Esteban, watching as Pierre just grinned. “I want to audition. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know,” hummed Pierre, sitting on top of the swingset once he’d managed to climb up. “Maybe. Going to Paris is scary though.”

“I thought you wanted to be the best ballet dancer though? The best go to Paris, Pierre,” Esteban had reminded him.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


They’d auditioned together in the end - Esteban and his mama had stayed over at Pierre’s house the night before, and they’d caught the earliest train from Rouen to Paris.    
  


“It’s so huge!” gasped Pierre as they rounded the corner to the Palais Garnier, and Esteban had clung onto his mama’s hand as they looked up at the marble steps. 

It had been a weird audition - they’d spent the majority of it being weighed and measured, not getting to dance until the end of it, when they’d be taken into a room in front of some judges and perform some exercises for them along with a short solo. Monsieur Alesi had reminded him to show off his jumps, because they were where he was most talented, so he’d warmed up with some plies and jumps before he’d gone in.

“Good luck bebé,” his mama had told him, crouching down to hold his hands. “Me and your papa are proud no matter what happens.” 

Pierre had beamed at him, and given him a big hug when his name was called first. “You’ll do great, okay?” he’d told him, and Esteban had gone into his audition with his head held high.

* * *

The day that the letter from the Paris Opera Ballet School had dropped through his letter box had been one of the rare days he didn’t have dance later on, and Esteban’s heart had pounded as his Papa held it up to show him.    


  
As soon as he’d found out he’d got in, he’d demanded his family call Pierre’s house, so he could see if Pierre was going with him. He was sure he would, because Pierre was so good at port de bras -

“I didn’t get it,” Pierre had sighed sadly. “They said they want me to try next year though? They just don’t think I’m ready this year.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hohohoho....
> 
> please read the trigger warnings that have been added x

The first year of school had been incredibly difficult. Moving from Alesi to the Paris Opera Ballet School was like going from the frying pan to the fire - from dancing six or seven hours per week to doing nearly twenty, and trying to cram schoolwork down to three hours a day, and being away from home, and not even being ten yet, had him crying down the phone to his mama and papa most nights.

Everyone at school was so competitive, about  _ everything _ , and Esteban had known he’d always been competitive himself, but it was different there, because everyone was also stressed about leaving home, and missing their families, and trying their best to live up to the expectation that came with going to the Paris Opera Ballet School so young. He’d never been very good at making friends, and he hadn’t managed it at school either.

  
His parents had asked a lot of times whether he wanted to quit and come home, and each and every time he’d said no, because he loved dancing, and knew that dropping the hours would make him even sadder than school did. He couldn’t give up Nanterre, couldn’t give up all the dancing that he got to do, that he didn’t have to go to normal school any more and deal with people who didn’t understand why he threw himself into ballet whole heartedly.

Plus, there’d been rumours that Alain Prost was going to pick out a 10 year old class for next year, and Esteban  _ had _ to get into that one, because everyone at Paris Opera Ballet School talked about Alain Prost like a god, the best teacher of all.

He felt a bit deflated when he went home to Evreux for christmas though, and went back to classes with Monsieur Alesi, and saw just how good Pierre had got. He knew Pierre had started having private classes ever since he’d been told to wait another year, and Esteban had always known that Pierre had been talented, but Pierre now had better port de bras than anyone in his class at school, and he’d grown taller and leaner, just like all the teachers at school encouraged them to do, and was making everything he did in class look effortless. Maybe it was having one on one attention with Monsieur Alesi, maybe it was just  _ Pierre _ , but he seemed to float when he danced, seemed like he just knew where things were supposed to be placed, seemed better than Esteban now.

And it was infuriating - because Pierre was getting so much better  _ here _ , in Rouen, living at home with his family, while Esteban felt like he was trying to keep afloat in Nanterre so much of the time.

“Are you going to audition again?” Esteban had asked between classes, while Pierre stretched out his legs.

“I don’t know,” hummed Pierre. “Maybe I’ll wait another year. I don’t know if I’m ready to move away from my mama and papa yet. You’re really brave to do it.”   
  
“You’ve got to audition,” Esteban encouraged. “Alain Prost is picking a ten year old class next year! You’ve got to come, there’s no way you wouldn’t get in.”

“Alain Prost?” Pierre had gasped. “He’s having a class?”

“Yeah,” nodded Esteban. “Everyone’s been talking about it. And he’s going to be at auditions picking too.”

“Guess you’ve convinced me,” laughed Pierre.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Pierre got in without issue at his second time auditioning, and when Esteban came home from Nanterre for the easter break, Pierre had so many questions for him that naturally they’d  _ had _ to have a sleepover for Esteban to have time to answer them all.

Even though Esteban was technically having a sleepover every night at boarding school, it seemed so different doing it with Pierre, having a sleepover with a  _ friend _ , and without knowing that the people you were the closest in school with probably wouldn’t be there the following year, and that they were envious that he was getting to stay.

“So you have to share a room?” Pierre asked, climbing back onto the bed after putting the playstation controllers back.

“Yeah. I think the two I’m sharing with now are getting assessed out though,” said Esteban, and Pierre furrowed his eyebrows as he climbed under the covers.    
  
“What does that mean?”

“If you’re not good enough, you don’t get to stay at the school,” said Esteban. “You’ve got to pass all the exams to stay.”

“That’s… kind of scary really,” admitted Pierre. “Do people really get assessed out?”

“Yeah. They already got rid of two people,” nodded Esteban. “And that’s before we’ve even had our summer exams.”

“Oh. But you won’t, right?” asked Pierre, looking at him. “I don’t want to go on my own.”

“I don’t think so,” said Esteban, just praying he was right. His marks and feedback had been good so far, his roommates had been told they were at risk of going and he hadn’t, so surely he had to be safe?

“Good,” said Pierre, letting out a sigh of relief. “Do you have to do maths?”

“Yes. You don’t get out of it that easy. You’ve got to do the same amount of maths in less time,,” said Esteban, laughing at the way Pierre’s face fell.

“What’s the point of going to ballet school if you don’t get out of doing maths?” sighed Pierre.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The final term before the end of his first year was a whirlwind - of roommates moving out, of exams and classes and final performances that left Esteban collapsing into bed after dinner every day until it was finally over.

Going home made the pressure he’d been under clear by its absence. Dancing without having everyone at each others throats, getting to dance with Pierre again, getting to dance under Monsieur Alesi again had felt like a dream, because he was just focusing on  _ dance _ again, getting to do it without fear that putting a foot wrong would lead to his dream being snatched away from him, like it had been his roommates.

Summer was sucked away too soon from them though, and it wasn’t long before he was in the Wear Moi store in Paris with his mama and Pierre and Pascale, picking out uniform for the next year.

Esteban had always been aware that Pierre’s family had more money than his own, but seeing the way that Pascale pile high dancewear while his own mama tried to figure out which size to buy to make sure he looked right while still giving him room to grow, time until they needed to buy the next set up, was the first time it had been so clearly presented to him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Esteban immediately knew that his second year was going to be better when he and his parents arrived in Nanterre, and he had found out that Pierre’s name was listed alongside his on the list of room allocations.

Being home had made him realise that the main issue with the first year of school was that he’d felt  _ lonely _ . He’d never felt that way before - not when he’d had no friends at school, not when he’d spent hours in a studio practicing alone, not before Nanterre - but when he was home and Pierre had gone on a holiday, and suddenly his days had felt cold again, just like they had at school. 

“Are you excited to share with Pierre?” asked his mama, because he’d spoken to her about how lonely he’d been once he’d figured out what exactly it was that he’d been feeling, trying to figure out how to stop it happening again.

Esteban didn’t think he had to give much explanation when they reached the room he’d assigned, and Pierre flew out of it and excitedly hugged him, blabbering about how weird it was to be sharing a room, and how he’d met their other room mate but that he’d already gone somewhere else, and how sad it was that he didn’t have a playstation there, and where he was supposed to fit everything because there was one closet between the three of them.

  
Pierre’s enthusiasm seemed to dull once their parents had started to drive back to Normandy, when it had left the two of them alone in the room and it had started to go dark outside. Their other roommate hadn’t yet returned (and Esteban had the feeling that it was for the same reason) when Esteban had been in bed, trying to get an early nights rest before classes started the following day, and Pierre had climbed into his bed and burst out crying about missing home.

“I don’t know if I can do this Este, I miss home already,” Pierre had sobbed, clutching onto him tight, and Esteban had never had that feeling before - Pierre was older than him, and sure they’d joked about how Pierre was used to being the baby as a result of him being a youngest child, but there was also the difference that Esteban had a years experience of feeling horribly homesick and lonely and knew how this strange school worked and had got over the fears Pierre had right now already.

“It’s okay,” Esteban had soothed, hugging him back. “Everyone gets homesick at first Pierre! I bet that’s why Anthoine’s not come back yet. He’s probably feeling the same.”

“I hope he doesn’t think I’m a baby if he comes back and sees this,” huffed Pierre.

“I’ll tell him off if he tries,” laughed Esteban, giving Pierre a squeeze.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Pierre had always been a little bit special, Esteban had known that.

It still didn’t make it easier to watch everything come so easily to him though.

Pierre was a social butterfly, able to defuse the tension and competitiveness that had lingered in the class during Esteban’s first year, and found it so easy to become everyone’s friend. He dragged Esteban along with him on that, pulling him into a tight trio with him and Anthoine, making it so everyone in their class spoke to them too, even though they were much shyer. 

He quickly became a favourite of their teachers too, Monsieur Prost more than anyone else.

Monsieur Prost had been terrifying the first time Esteban had met him, when their class had been lined up at the barre in alphabetical order, told to stand in first position in silence and wait for their teacher to come in. Prost was smaller than Esteban had imagined, not towering over them like other teachers, and wiry and grey, with a stern look on his face as he’d barked instructions at them when the piano had started to play. 

It had been a few lessons in before Prost had started moving them around on the barres, and Pierre had been the first one to have it happen - he’d been taken by the hand and been put right into the centre of the middle barre, signifying that he was the top student in Prost’s eye at that time. Pierre hadn’t seemed to understand the significance, not like Esteban and everyone else who’d already done a year there did, having seen it play out before over the course of the terms.

“He’s probably put me there so he can see me better,” Pierre had said as he’d buttered a bread roll at lunch following that class. “Since I keep doing tendus wrong. He’s told me off for it loads of times now.”   
  


Esteban didn’t have it in him to try and convince Pierre of what was actually happening, knowing he’d eventually end up seeing for himself. 

“Maybe Este’s right Pierre,” Anthoine had said, trying to back him up. “Prost always says how nice your arms are and that we should copy yours, doesn’t he?.”

Esteban had grown closer to Anthoine in their first term together, as they’d both watched the spotlight fall on Pierre. Where Pierre spent the free hour they got after dinner playing in the gardens of the school (though it was usually after one of their other classmates had come and pulled it in, such was the curse of popularity), he and Anthoine would spend time stretching, or practicing in their room or one of the empty studios.

“How come Pierre can just do stuff? He never practices outside of class,” sighed Anthoine.

“He’s always been like that,” shrugged Esteban, and he could see that there was a bit of the same jealousy in Anthoine that he felt himself, that even if Pierre’s footwork wasn’t perfect yet, he was able to do adage and port de bras better than any of them, that he was able to make Monsieur Prost’s eyes light up when he watched him dance, that even if he still cried some nights because he missed Rouen he was still a source of positivity, bright enough to draw classmates to him like moths to a flame.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The first time Esteban had seen Pierre practice outside of classes had been in the run up to their end of term exams, when even though he’d been kept in the centre of the centre barre, he’d not managed to get the footwork for tendus and glissades down, and there was a correction from Monsieur Prost every single time they did them.

Esteban hadn’t been expecting it - he’d joined up with a few of the others from their class, had been stretching to try and get their legs into oversplits in their jetes like Pierre’s were, and he’d gone back to their room to get a foam roller to roll out his muscles, and he’d found Pierre with one hand on the window ledge, treating it like a barre, while his other held a notebook in front of him.

“What are you doing?” asked Esteban with a laugh, going over to him.

“I got Monsieur Prost to write out the steps for me,” said Pierre, pausing to show Esteban tiny, cursive handwriting in his notebook, different to Pierre’s own loopy oversized letters. “Cause I keep getting them mixed up.”

Esteban didn’t tell Pierre that he doubted anybody else could have the confidence to just  _ ask _ Monsieur Prost to write down an exercise they’d been doing since September when they were in December now. And that he doubted Monsieur Prost would do it for anyone but Pierre at this point. He knew that some people in their class had already been told that they were at risk of being assessed out, even though they had the exercises down completely.

After those exams had been the first time Esteban had seen Pierre nervous, to the point he’d sat in their room and cried to him and Anthoine about how he was  _ sure _ he’d failed, that they might as well pack up his third of the room then and there, that Monsieur Prost hadn’t even looked up from his marksheet and neither had any of the other examiners as he’d left the room after the part of the exam they each did alone with no other students in the studio.

The day of their results, Monsieur Prost had taken them all off the ballet barre to rearrange them, and Esteban had seen in Pierre’s face that he’d finally realised that Esteban was right about what he’d been saying about  _ why _ he’d been put in the middle of the centre bar, and that he was also suddenly terrified of being put elsewhere.

Monsieur Prost had rearranged them slowly, explaining their results as they went. Anthoine had been led to the end of the centre barre, as Monsieur Prost had praised his articulation through his feet, and Esteban had been near the middle of the barre as Monsieur Prost praised how much stronger he’d got in his core since the start of the term…

And then Monsieur Prost had led Pierre back to his regular spot, right in the centre, and told them that Pierre had got the highest scores on record for a student in that particular exam, since the school had been founded, and Esteban had risked a glance at Anthoine, because  _ of course. _

  
  


* * *

  
  


The scariest thing about the Paris Opera Ballet School was that sometimes, being assessed out was unavoidable, no matter how hard you worked.

When he was thirteen, Esteban had been conscious of the fact that he hadn’t started his growth spurt like both Pierre and Anthoine had, that he was shorter than everyone else in their class now, that the reason he’d been moved to the middle of the centre barre now was because everyone else was struggling to recentre their technique on longer legs and broader shoulders, that they’d grown taller faster than they’d gained the strength to go with it.

“You’re just not growing fast enough, Esteban,” one of the school nurses had told him at one of the times they were all weighed and measured each term. “Are you sure you’re eating enough?”

He’d worried about it through the first term, because they were going to start practicing proper pas de deux after easter, and if he hadn’t grown by then he wouldn’t be taller than the girls, even when they weren’t en pointe, he wouldn’t be strong enough to lift them.

His growth spurt had finally hit during the christmas break, and though his technique faltered with it like everyone else’s had, it was a relief. Until he’d started outgrowing his uniform, and his gut had twisted at the thought of having to ask his parents to buy more before the year was out.

“Just borrow mine,” Pierre had shrugged when Esteban had opened up to him about it, after Pierre had been trying to figure out why he’d been stressed. 

Borrowing Pierre’s things solved one problem but created another - because wearing Pierre’s things made Esteban acutely aware of how differently their bodies looked. He’d known the whole time, because theirs was a visual art form, and there were mirrors all along the walls of their studio that they were forced to look into multiple times a day, trying to form their bodies into shapes that were unnatural, but the slight tightness across his shoulders and hips as he became broader than Pierre was horrified him.

“Why’ve you started that?” he’d asked Pierre, the first time he’d caught Pierre pocketing a pack of cigarettes on his way out of their room.

“Oh,” said Pierre, running his hand through his hair. “I was talking to some of the older guys. They said it helps you keep weight off. Monsieur Prost said it too, but I think he said it as a joke, but Jules said it works for him...”   
  


And that just made the feelings worse, because now Pierre was actively taking steps to keep weight off when he was already narrower than Esteban, when Pierre was constantly complimented on how he made each step he did look light and floaty and effortless, when Pierre had taken his spot in the centre of the middle barre.

Pierre had dispelled a lot of the more nasty aspects of competitiveness in their class long ago, but they all still knew that out of the thirty boys in their year, spread between three classes, that there were only going to be two getting contracts with the Paris Opera Ballet when they were eighteen.

And Pierre was currently fitting the mould better than Esteban physically could.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It was the following year that Esteban finally got to be in the spotlight.

He’d never wish for the circumstances it had come from - from Pierre breaking a bone in his spine in a horrible car crash, leaving him wearing a back brace and unable to dance for 8 weeks, only able to look on from the side of class - but getting to take that centre spot of the middle barre once again was something Esteban had relished. 

Monsieur Prost had started treating him the way he treated Pierre. There were more personal corrections, more attention, at times he’d be kept behind after class to learn some repertoire for the winter performance.

And Esteban  _ relished  _ in it.

He was getting taller now, with long limbs that looked awkward outside of dance but beautiful within it, was getting praised for his interpretation of their variations now, he was blossoming under the attention. 

Except for one thing.

His usual partner for pas de deux was also injured, and so he’d been paired with Pierre’s. 

Amandine was the most beautiful girl in their year, with caramel skin and dark glossy hair and dark brown eyes framed by thick lashes. A few of the other boys had given him a playful nudge when they’d been paired (and he’d been glad that Pierre wasn’t the type of person to get jealous or angry, because he and Anthoine knew that Pierre had been sneaking around with her for a few months now), but…

No matter what, Esteban couldn’t see Amandine like the other boys did.

He’d tried, and tried, but no matter what, he just wasn’t interested. The only person he’d seen in the same way that the other boys obviously saw Amandine, was  _ Pierre _ .

Pierre had needed help putting his back brace on when he got out of the shower a few times, and Esteban had been able to see how he was developing muscle, that he was getting broader, that Pierre was beautiful. And when Pierre would look him in the eyes and thank him, give him a hug for helping him, it had made Esteban’s heart flutter.

And he’d promptly stuffed that feeling down, had balled it up tight, because Pierre was his best friend, and Pierre had a sort-of-girlfriend, and Pierre wouldn’t have been interested in him anyway.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Pierre didn’t manage to claw the centre of the middle barre back from him for the remainder of that year, though once he’d healed he quickly worked his way up to next to him in class. He, Pierre, and Anthoine were a trio - taking up the centre barre, the front row for the centre exercises, a pas de trois in the summer performance.

The competitiveness within their class had started creeping back in once it had become clear that the three of them were Monsieur Prost’s favourites, and even Pierre’s popularity hadn’t been able to shield them against that. There were whispered comments as they walked around the school, people would look at them enviously, Esteban had heard them making up shitty rumours about the three of them.

“Leave them to it,” Pierre had shrugged one night, when Esteban had been ranting to him and Anthoine about one of the other boys spreading rumours that Pierre had obviously sucked off Monsieur Prost to get back onto the centre barre. They’d snuck out of their room late at night, and hidden behind the bike sheds as they’d lit cigarettes that Pierre had got one of the older students to buy for him.

“I can’t believe you’re willing to let them say that kind of shit about you,” said Esteban, looking to Pierre.

“Why? They can say what they want. It’s only going to get them in shit if one of the staff hears it,” said Pierre, flicking some ash from his cigarette into the bushes. “I’ve got you two. I’m okay.”

“Imagine if Prost heard them saying it,” agreed Anthoine. “They’d be out of his class within a week.”

“Hopefully assessed out,” sighed Esteban. “I fucking hate them.”

When it was announced that for the first time in years, their school was going to send some entrants to the Prix de Lausanne the following year, Esteban could start to taste the animosity in the air. Monsieur Prost hadn’t said how many they’d be taking, but the mere announcement of it had seemed to fuel the fire in them all.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Esteban had been thinking about how he’d still been able to find any interest in Amandine.

She was his regular pas de deux partner now - a last minute growth spurt had made her a few centimetres too tall for Pierre en pointe now, plus there had been a slightly messy split between the two of them which had made it so neither of them had protested - but even though they had to trust each other, that he had to behave like he was in love with her when they danced, the fakeness of it all made him feel hollow inside.

He knew what it meant that it was bright blue eyes that he thought about when he tried to act out having a crush, of feeling love’s first sting.

He’d rather die than actually say it out loud though.

“I can’t believe the fucking train broke down,” sighed Pierre, as they dragged their suitcases out of the train station and to the bus stop. “It’s going to take forever to get home.”

“How long did they say?” asked Esteban.

“Three hours,” said PIerre, pouting. “At least I’ve got you to entertain me, huh?”

And Esteban didn’t know why he decided that the back of a rail replacement bus to Rouen was the right place to tell Pierre how scary that it was that he didn’t fancy Amandine at all, and that he’d never fancied any girl, only boys (though not  _ which _ boy, because that would be so embarrassing that Esteban would have to bury himself alive to get over it), and that he was scared that he’d never find anyone, but it had felt that way, and dumping all of that onto Pierre had felt like taking a weight off his chest.

Pierre had sat and listened to him, just nodding and hugging him when he’d completely embarrassed himself and started crying, glad that most of the businesspeople who’d been planning to take the train had completely refused the alternative of a bus, because at least it meant they were pretty much alone. And then Esteban had got even more pathetic, crying about how he’d never kissed anyone, and if he did find someone that he liked, then he didn’t know how to kiss and they’d probably laugh at him -

“I can teach you how to kiss, if you want?” offered Pierre.

  
“But we’re both boys?”

“Sure,” Pierre shrugged. “I’ve kissed loads of boys though. And you literally just said that you like boys. So I can teach you, yeah?”   
  
And Esteban had been nervous, because Pierre was still so  _ confusing _ to him, what Pierre meant and what he actually signified, but Pierre talked him through kissing, and there were plump pink lips on his, leading him through a pas de deux of their own, Pierre leading him through the dance of their mouths and tongues.

“See? Not that hard,” Pierre had laughed when they’d broken apart, and they’d never spoken of it again.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Things between him and Pierre hadn’t changed after they’d kissed, and Esteban wasn’t sure whether he was happy about that or not. 

On the one hand, he still had his best friend, things weren’t awkward, and Esteban had a lot of his fears put to rest.

On the other hand, there were still times he’d wake up, having dreamt about kissing Pierre again, and he’d wake up in a cold sweat only to see Pierre curled up fast asleep in the bed opposite him.

Things turned nasty within their class when Monsieur Prost announced that he was going to enter Esteban, Pierre, and Anthoine into the Prix de Lausanne, and no more. People had turned against the three of them, had started to even leave Pierre out of things.

It had just driven Esteban closer to Pierre and Anthoine though, even if it meant that their time out of the studio was spread more thinly as they each took individual choreography and preparation lessons with Monsieur Prost. 

Esteban had been given solos from  _ Napoli  _ and  _ Giselle _ , and he’d been extremely happy with Monsieur Prost’s choice for him. They were variations in which he could show off his jumps, his lines, and more importantly they were  _ winning _ variations, he knew that people had won with them in previous years.

And winning was important, because he knew that ballet school was becoming increasingly expensive for his parents to fund, and it’d only become more so in the next year or two as he had to start auditioning for companies in case Paris Opera didn’t want him after all of this training. The prize money from Prix de Lausanne would cover a lot for him - and he knew how important that was. His parents weren’t open with him about how much they had to sacrifice to fund his dream, but it was easy to see that his papa had extending opening hours at the garage, or that his mama was picking up more cleaning jobs than she’d done before.

The trip to Switzerland for the actual competition wasn’t going to be easy for them either. So the least Esteban could do was win.

Monsieur Prost seemed to think he could do it - he’d kept him in the centre of the middle barre, would smile as he practiced his variations, encouraged him that he had the body type and technique that casting directors were looking for and that they’d be in the audience.

He wasn’t stupid - he knew that there’d been some issues with the staff at the school, and that taking the three of them to Prix De Lausanne was some kind of power play from Monsieur Prost who he knew wanted to be promoted to head of the school, and that there was infighting - but winning the Prix de Lausanne would do  _ so  _ much for him. There wasn’t an unemployed recent winner, having a Prix de Lausanne win under your belt all but guaranteed a contract with the company of your choice.

They’d practiced for six months, and they’d been agonizing. There wasn’t much free time at all with all the extra rehearsals - and what free time there was, Esteban usually spent in his room with either Pierre or Anthoine, whichever one wasn’t in rehearsal when he wasn’t, and half the time one of them would pass out in bed exhausted anyway.

It all felt worth it as they arrived in Lausanne.

The first few rounds had felt like a dream - he’d been complimented, told how gorgeous of a dancer he was, had been lavished with attention, had casting directors of major companies come and introduce themselves to him, ask what languages he could speak and been delighted that he was fluent in spanish and could string a few words together in English, and how  _ wonderful _ it’d be to have a dancer trained by Alain Prost working with them.

He’d been walking on cloud nine, he’d looked like a clear winner, many people had said it. He fit the mould of a modern ballet dancer perfectly (though it didn’t stop him feeling horrible when he looked in the mirror, because he’d always thought white made him look fat and drained and his parents wouldn’t sneak him cigarettes to make him feel better about it) and had flawless technique - how could he  _ not _ win?

He’d thought that his worries were over - that he’d have a Prix de Lausanne win under his belt, that his career was assured, that his parents would stop needing to sacrifice so much to fund his dreams.

  
Until.

_ “And our male winner, Pierre Gasly, of the Paris Opera Ballet School!” _


	3. Chapter 3

Esteban wished that he could be happy for Pierre.

His parents had been, had hugged Pierre tight and congratulated him, and had congratulated Esteban on his own top three finish. There’d still been a scholarship - not as big as the one Pierre had won, but there still was one, he still had casting directors flitting around him, he still had Monsieur Prost telling him how well he’d done - 

But he had felt bile in the back of his throat watching Pierre beam and stand next to the judges and the female winner (russian, always fucking russian) for pictures, holding a large bouquet. 

Anthoine had just smiled at him, saying, “We knew this was coming,” but Esteban really hadn’t - he’d been the one with the winning solos, a solid 186cm tall vs Pierre’s sometimes cheated 177cm,, he’d been in the middle of the centre barre for over a year now, and yet it was Pierre bathing in glory now, Pierre who knew his future was safe.

Always fucking Pierre.

When they’d got back to school, Monsieur Prost had quickly switched them, put Pierre in the centre of the middle barre, had started to lavish attention on him again. 

“You were cheated out of that win,” one of the other boys had said, when Esteban had been in the line to get his dinner from the canteen, and Pierre had been kept behind class by Prost, probably to learn some solo or another. “I heard Gasly had extra privates with Jean Alesi. The master of the Don Quixote solo he did.”

And Esteban wouldn’t have believed it, had they not mentioned Monsieur Alesi, because he doubted anybody knew or cared that they’d both studied under him before, but they  _ had _ , and suddenly Pierre’s weekend trips back to Rouen made much more sense. 

And he quickly let himself get sucked in with a group of other boys, who also felt cheated by Pierre getting to go, that he hadn’t been assessed out when other boys who’d finished up the same height as him had already been assessed out for it, that Pierre was the  _ favourite _ , and they made his anger and hurt at the loss of Prix de Lausanne feel so normal.

He was never alone in the corridors anymore, he always had someone to go to now he’d started integrating himself with them. He was getting a taste of the popularity Pierre had previously enjoyed, he wasn’t having shitty rumours spread about him like Pierre was, and it felt like somewhat of a consolation prize.

One of the other boys had even taken him into the park outside and kissed him, had made him feel loved, and they’d dated for three months. People had started to appreciate him for  _ him _ , rather than him just being in Pierre’s orbit, a lowly planet circling an  _ etoile _ .

Anthoine had told him he was a dick for what he was doing, but it was difficult to care about Anthoine’s opinion on it when the vast majority of their class agreed with him on Pierre. He’d found out a lot of things from them - that Pierre had done the same two solos that Monsieur Prost had done back when he’d won the Prix de Lausanne, that they were pretty sure Prost was excited to see someone short manage to succeed considering his own height had been such an obstacle, that a lot of Pierre’s success came from his looks rather than his technique being any better than everyone else’s. 

And all of those things had been true, and had left Esteban glaring at Pierre’s back when he woke up in the night. 

Articles about the Prix results had praised how delicate and princely Pierre looked, and Esteban had known that had just meant small and good looking, and though he knew that it was nothing that Pierre had control over, it was just another way in which Esteban had to be faced with the fact that so much of the career he’d picked wasn’t based on whether you worked hard, or how much you loved ballet, but instead on whether you just  _ looked _ right and that was completely uncontrollable.

It took a few weeks of this before Pierre called him on it. For those few weeks, even if Pierre had won the competition, Esteban had felt like he’d won - because now he had friends outside of his roommates and a circle of people to be with, and was being invited to things, not like Pierre who was barely seen outside of class and would usually sit alone with Antoine at meals.

Pierre may have won, but in this aspect he was completely the bottom of the pile.

Esteban couldn’t remember what had triggered Pierre off, couldn’t remember if he’d said something, but Pierre had been in their room stretching out when he’d said, “Off with your new friends?”

“Yeah, I am,” Esteban said, brown eyes meeting blue. 

“I’m sure they’re having a great time bitching about me to you,” said Pierre simply, and on the one hand it infuriated Esteban, because it was  _ typical  _ Pierre to assume everything revolved around him, but on the other hand it terrified him because Pierre was right, and they did.

“It’s not always about you,” Esteban said. “Outside of ballet, anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pierre frowned.

“Do you know what it’s like, fucking living with you?” asked Esteban, not waiting for Pierre to answer to continue. “To watch everything coming so fucking easily to you? To watch you waltz into this school, take it over, become Prosts favourite,  _ fuck,  _ win the biggest competition there is like it isn’t a big thing?”

“It doesn’t all come easi-“

“Yes, it fucking does Pierre! You’ve never had it difficult. Your dad plays golf with Jean fucking Alesi. You’ve never had to stress about how much fucking stress you’ve had to put your parents under to even be able to afford this, never had to have a single worry in that little head of yours, have you?”

And Esteban could see Pierre’s face change, could see his mouth set in a line and could hear how calm his voice had suddenly become. The same thing he did with other boys in their class, when he insisted he didn’t care what they were saying.

“You think you deserve this more than me?” he asked, looking Esteban dead in the eye.

And Esteban felt the words rush out of his mouth before he could stop them, could feel that he was tipping over the edge of no return, but he’d been building these thoughts in his head for weeks now, ever since the Prix had been snatched away from him.

“Yeah, I do. So does everyone else.”

“Nice for them,” said Pierre. “You really think you can put the blame for everything on me, don’t you? You think you’re above me.”

“Yeah, I am. Look at you, you might have won the Prix, but you’re on your own at school now, not the golden child any more,” said Esteban, and he could feel his lips twisting up at the corners as he said it.

“Yeah. You won the real prize getting to be with _them_ , didn’t you Esteban?” said Pierre, and Esteban slammed the door and walked out on him.

  
  


* * *

Pierre didn’t speak to him after that.

Anthoine had sided with Pierre, but that didn’t matter, because Esteban had other people now, had friends and a boyfriend and got to be the second best in the class, knew he had the advantage that he was taller and leaner than Pierre now (though Pierre was seeming slimmer these days than he usually was), he knew that he was better off than Pierre was, Prix de Lausanne win or not.

Sometimes it was difficult when he’d come into his room and Pierre would fall silent in whatever conversation him and Anthoine were having, even if it wasn’t related to him (and he often knew it wasn’t, because Pierre was  _ loud _ and sometimes Esteban could hear his laughter echoing through the halls), or when Pierre would immediately leave if he came to ask Anthoine something, but he had people to talk to about it - he could tell people that Pierre was freezing him up, and they’d tell him that it was typical for Pierre to be a stuck up bitch like that, just because he had a Prix de Lausanne win.

It was worth it.

And then, one night Esteban had walked into Anthoine sobbing into Pierre’s chest, and Anthoine had said out loud that he’d been told he was going to be assessed out, they’d found that his hyperextension in his knees was too much and that his technique was slipping and that he was no longer suitable for the Opera, and never would be again, so they’d decided to throw him on the scrapheap just before they entered their final year.

It was the first time that Pierre hadn’t gone silent or left the room when he’d walked in, and it made Esteban’s stomach twist with guilt when he heard him say, “I’ll help you find somewhere else,” because it was the first time he’d properly heard Pierre speak in  _ ages _ , because he rarely heard Pierre speak even in class these days.

“Yeah,” said Esteban, sitting down on Anthoine’s other side and ignoring the way that Pierre tensed up as he did so. “We can find you another school.”

“Lyon’s meant to be really good,” said Pierre, keeping his eyes fixed on Anthoine.

And when they went to sleep that night, Esteban couldn’t help but feel pure dread, because Anthoine had got top three at Lausanne, just like he had, and it hadn’t been enough to keep him safe from being assessed out. His new friends had insisted that Esteban had nothing to worry about, that he’d have his choice of job because of Lausanne, and yet here was Anthoine with the exact same result being thrown out of their school.

They’d actually worked together and used their contacts from Lausanne to get Anthoine’s CV out there, they’d got him auditions lined up, in Nice and Lyon and Monaco, and Esteban had heard Pierre reassuring him late at night that the Opera wasn’t the be all and end all, that he’d been speaking to dancers from there himself and there wasn’t much freedom and opportunities for progression were limited, and maybe things would actually be better elsewhere, where Anthoine could dance more freely.

Esteban could see that Anthoine hadn’t really come to terms with it - he stopped practicing outside of classes, stopped stretching, he could tell that his conversations with Pierre were becoming more and more one sided, with Pierre talking and talking to try and fill the void left as Anthoine stayed quiet.

He’d seemed eerily calm on the last day of term though, when his parents had driven up from Lyon to help him move things out of his room. Pierre and Esteban had been taking it in turns to go and take boxes down to the car for him, helping him shift 7 years of stuff out of Nanterre and into the back of his mother’s Renault Captur.

“Look after him for me, okay?” Anthoine had asked him. “Pierre I mean. He’s got a lot of shit going on.”   
  
“Pierre’s more than capable of looking after himself,” Esteban had reassured.

“Seriously,” Anthoine had said, looking him in the eye. “He’s a good person. I know you’re still mad about him winning Lausanne. But look after him, I won’t be here to do it.”

And Esteban had felt weird about it, but agreed. He knew Pierre didn’t need much looking after, and that Pierre probably wouldn’t speak to him anyway, and it seemed to make Anthoine seem a bit more at peace with it all.

He’d just got back from taking a box full of clothes down when he heard screaming ringing through the halls, and his heart had pounded as he’d realised it was coming from Anthoine’s room. It didn’t sound like Anthoine though, it sounded like - 

_ Pierre _ , and as he reached the door he could see Pierre stood on top of the dresser, as Anthoine dangled from the curtain rail, and he’d helped Pierre get him down onto the floor, and watched as Pierre had tried to do CPR, while still screaming, all the time screaming, and then there had been other people who’d come in and started screaming, and eventually paramedics who’d taken over, and some members of staff had taken him and Pierre out of the room and put them into one of the empty classrooms, and Pierre had let Esteban put an arm around him, and they’d just  _ sat there _ -

Up until Monsieur Prost had come and taken Pierre away, had reminded him that the show had to go on as he pulled him somewhere, Pierre looking dazed and like it wasn’t him behind his eyes anymore as he was led away.

And it had left Esteban alone, trying to figure out what the  _ fuck _ he’d just seen, trying to process it, and then his parents had turned up and he’d been wrapped in their hugs and driven back to Evreux.

* * *

  
  


Esteban had felt shellshocked, like he couldn’t focus, for the entire summer. 

Anthoine was  _ dead _ , and none of his new friends had checked in on him, and his old friend was probably sat in Rouen feeling the same way but they weren’t talking, they hadn’t spoken even after it had happened, and things just felt horribly  _ wrong _ .

His parents had been able to tell that things weren’t right, they’d scrambled the money together for a therapist, and he’d started to talk about it. He’d taken a few weeks away from dance, because he couldn’t focus on it anyway, and spent a lot of time in his dad’s garage, talking to him about what had happened.

And the more he talked about it, the easier it got. His therapist had told him that what he was feeling was normal, that what he’d seen was traumatic, that he needed time to focus on himself, and that was what he’d done.

Going into the start of his final year, Esteban was starting to feel whole again. He felt sick when he saw the room assignments though, when he’d seen it was just him and Pierre in the room that they’d seen Anthoine die in, because it had been home to the three of them and now it was just going to be the two of them.

Pierre had evidently got there before him, his bed made up and his dancewear hung up in the shared closet, yoga mat rolled up in the corner, and it felt so  _ weird _ . Anthoine’s bed had been removed, and they’d changed the curtains and carpet, but otherwise it was the same, even though things never would be again.

  
Pierre hadn’t returned to their room until night, smelling of cigarette smoke and looking exhausted enough that him rolling into bed without a word wasn’t offensive at all, really. Through that first night Esteban didn’t sleep though, and with the constant shifting Pierre was doing, he was pretty sure he didn’t either.

Part of him wished that the whole shit with Lausanne and the way the year before had gone could be wiped away, and he could crawl into Pierre’s bed and be hugged, or Pierre could climb into his, and Esteban could unleash everything he felt, about how awful he felt that they hadn’t known what Anthoine was going to do, how scary it was to watch, how it had happened less than a metre from where they both slept.

But he couldn’t, because even though he knew Pierre was at best a metre and a half away, the gulf between them felt enormous, like he was on a different plane rather than within touching distance.

He’d been straight on the phone to his therapist the next morning, had ditched maths and gone and sat in the gardens and felt validated at how ridiculous she thought him being put straight back into the same room was.

He told her that Pierre was weighing on his mind too, that Anthoine’s last words to him had been to look after Pierre, and yet Pierre was looking thinner than ever, and worn out, and he’d been out of their room by 5am that morning, and he didn’t know how to speak to him even though Pierre was the only person at school who he could speak to about it because Pierre was the only person who really  _ knew _ what it was like.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Pierre’s way of coping with it had seemed to be throwing himself into ballet, leaving himself no time for thinking about everything else. He’d be out of their room early in the morning, and Esteban had caught him working in an empty studio before they’d even had breakfast, working through variations and barre exercises, and he’d caught him doing the same thing after dinner up until he’d come back into their room late at night, and nobody else seemed to grasp  _ why _ Pierre doing that was so wrong, because even though he’d never practiced before and this was such a huge switch in him, his dancing was  _ beautiful _ now.

It was like letting ballet take over him had elevated him somehow, had put him above the rest of them, the perfect trophy for the Paris Opera Ballet School, for them to pull out and dangle in front of everyone else to prove that they had the best training in the world. And Esteban couldn’t help but think that it was typical Pierre, to turn pain into beauty, to rise up from Anthoine’s ashes and resurge.

At least, it had been until he’d got a call from one of Pierre’s brothers (who he was surprised still had his number, really), who’d asked him whether Pierre was  _ really _ alright, because none of them were quite sure, and could he somehow find out sneakily for them and let them know, without letting Pierre they were worried?

And he hadn’t told him, hadn’t told him that he and Pierre hadn’t spoken in almost a year now, that they hadn’t even tried speaking to each other in that time either, he’d just reassured him that he’d try his best to find out.

When Pierre wasn’t dancing, he’d usually be writing something or another in a notebook that he carried around virtually all the time now, and  _ that _ made Esteban nervous. As Anthoine’s death had been looked into more, they’d found out there were notes that he’d written about what he was going to do, and now Pierre was  _ different _ and  _ writing _ and that scared the shit out of him.

It had taken him a long time to get hold of the notebook, he’d had to wait until one night where Pierre was tired enough to  _ actually _ sleep. Pierre had come back from practicing, had almost fallen into his bed, and had fallen asleep on top of the covers, and had left his notebook just  _ staring  _ at Esteban, ripe for the taking.

And Esteban had known that it was probably the only opportunity he’d get for a while, and had promptly snatched it to check.

_ “Cheat back foot turnout for oversplit - looks nicer” _

_ “Rhythm 1, 2, and, 3 on waltz step, needs more up down” _

_ “Palais Garnier @3pm monday” _

_ “Sometimes I look in the mirror and don’t understand what I’m looking at or who is looking at me” _

_ “Flight for London needs booking” _

_ “Head a beat earlier on black swan variation” _

_ “Flight for Italy needs booking - mum said she’d do it” _

_ “I think a lot about where my train of thought is going and it’s not always a good place and that scares me” _

_ “Need to call Dr Marko +44 1632 044 366 avail after 6 *USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE* - done, scary!” _

_ “? American Ballet Theatre - need to email” _

_ “Need to practice oversplits twice as much on left, too low” _

_ “This is all in my head” _

_ “Russia not great if you like boys” _

_ “If this is all in my head then why is my head so hostile?” _

_ “Covering snowflake POB 12/10 Vandoorne out” _

Esteban was relieved when he read through, finding it was just Pierre’s stream of consciousness. He could feel jealousy creeping in reading about the companies Pierre was contacting though, even though he knew it was inevitable that Pierre would end up being given a contract for the Opera anyway, especially if he was being to cover Vandoorne, who had been in the year above them and was now an apprentice there.

He’d slipped the notebook back, and called Pierre’s brother back the next day and told him that he’d looked in Pierre’s notebook, and that there was nothing worrying in there. Pierre was fine, just  _ really _ into ballet.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


Paris Opera Ballet had always been a little strange, in that 99.9% of the time, recruitment was done from the school. They didn’t hold open auditions - they just came and watched the winter exams, and chose who they wanted from there, and everyone else was told to go look elsewhere after the Opera had their pick. 

It was a way of securing the best french talent possible, a way of making sure that they were motivated to keep ensuring their training was the best, of giving their own students the opportunity to progress…

And it had left Esteban nervous as hell as he stood outside the doors of the studio, ready to go in for his ballet exam. He’d not been put in a group with Pierre this time unlike every year, and that felt weird, but it meant he could dance without being compared to him, and after Pierre’s performance this year, that was only going to be a good thing.

When he was taken aside and told he was being offered a Paris Opera Ballet contract, he’d felt elated. He’d  _ finally  _ achieved his goal, and he’d cried down the phone to his parents who’d said they’d known all along that he’d do it, and that they were  _ so _ proud of him.

He’d floated through the next days of school, lost in thought about how he’d just signed the contract of his dreams, that he was going to be in  _ the Opera _ and that his future was secure. He hadn’t taken note of anything around him, except for a few days later when one of his classmates had been taken out and returned half an hour later beaming, and told them all he’d just been given a contract with the Opera.

And that had shocked Esteban, because  _ everyone _ knew that all the Opera contracts were usually given out on the same day.

He’d put it to the back of his mind though, thinking that maybe one of the corps was going off injured and they’d need an extra from the school to become a sujet as a result, up until a few days later when articles about a Prix de Lausanne winner turning down a contract with the Opera started appearing on the ballet news sites, and then in the papers.

They said Pierre had turned down a contract with the Opera, that he’d opted to go to London and dance for the Royal Ballet instead, citing a lack of opportunity for progression. They also had quotes from Monsieur Prost, who had agreed with him, clearly using it as a points scoring exercise in his vendetta against the people who hadn’t made him the school director despite his wishes, and the comments lamented the loss of Pierre, how beautifully they’d seen Pierre dance now he was occasionally covering Vandoorne in the company.

And that was the thing that had Esteban finally snapped over, that had him flying into the room they shared and slamming the door behind him when he found Pierre sitting in an oversplit with his foot up on the radiator, writing in his notebook.

“ _ London _ ? Are you fucking joking?”

“Yeah. London. Why do you care?” Pierre asked, moving out of the splits to sit cross legged.

  
And really, Esteban didn’t know why he cared, because he and Pierre weren’t speaking, they hadn’t before this anyway, but it felt wrong to not be going into the Opera together, for this to actively be something Pierre had decided against rather than it being that one of them hadn’t made it.

“You don’t even speak English,” Esteban had huffed.

“Yeah well. Nobody here speaks to me either, do they? So what’s the point of speaking French?” said Pierre.

“You turned down  _ the Opera _ .”   
  


“Yeah. Yeah I did,” said Pierre, getting up off the floor. “Why the hell would I stay? I hate this school. I hate the company. I’ve got absolutely no loyalty to this place.”

“So you’re going to go somewhere you don’t speak the language and just expect it to work out?” asked Esteban.

“Yeah. Better than getting eaten alive in the Opera. But you’ll learn all about that for yourself.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Adjusting to company life had been harder than Esteban had imagined. The atmosphere within the company was similar to how it had been at school, where everyone was quietly competitive, aiming for one of the few promotions available and willing to do anything to keep themselves in the running for one.

His dream hadn’t really turned out like a dream in the end, instead it seemed like he’d been doomed to the exact same shit he’d had in school, except there were more people doing it now and the competition was more fierce, and he was getting paid for it now.

Esteban had kept tabs on Pierre, who’d seemed to blossom since joining the Royal Ballet. He’d been given some small roles, the Golden Idol in La Bayadere, had filled in with one of the British apprentices to partner some girls in the Spanish Dance in Swan Lake, which was more than the Opera had offered him. He’d seemingly moved in with a roommate, his instagram full of pictures of a man playing piano in their flat, it looked like he had a girlfriend who was small with kind brown eyes, and most of all, he looked  _ happy _ .

And it was difficult, because somehow Pierre had lucked into the dream (though part of Esteban knew now that it wasn’t all luck anymore, because Pierre had actively  _ chosen _ this, had chosen to go to London even though it was probably a harder path initially) and Esteban was feeling utterly underwhelmed by the Opera.

So when he’d heard about auditions for the Royal Ballet, he’d booked a flight to London in secret, and had gone and danced for a panel of judges, and they’d complimented him and asked, “We’ve got a french dancer in our ranks, you dance like Pierre Gasly, do you know him?”

And he’d just nodded, and said, “We went to school together,” because there was no point in elaborating further, because Pierre had been promoted to First Artist after only a year apparently, so Esteban probably wouldn’t have seen him if he got a contract with them anyway.

  
Except he  _ did  _ see him, because the Royal Ballet didn’t hide their upper ranks away in different company classes to the corps, and he’d walked into his first company class to find Pierre stretching at the side of the room and chatting to a taller man who was doing the same, and his heart had stopped when he’d seen it.

Pierre looked different now - he’d gained some weight back to make his cheeks look less hollow and bony, and he’d had streaks of blonde put into his hair, and he’d got a tan, and he just looked so much  _ healthier _ , and Esteban couldn’t read his lips which meant he was probably speaking English, and it was the first time Esteban had seen him looking truly comfortable at least since Anthoine had died.

  
And his dancing was still  _ beautiful _ , beautiful enough that he was told to do the enchainement sequence that class alongside Lewis  _ fucking _ Hamilton, who had clapped him on the shoulder at the end and said, “Good job man,” as they walked over to the back corner at the other side of the room.

Pierre hadn’t so much as looked at him that class, instead he’d gone with the taller man he’d stretched with at the beginning and walked over towards the main Opera House, and Esteban had been taken by Franz Tost to the same place.

Franz was different to how Cyril had been at the Opera, because Franz was harsher but also at the same time far more honest, had told Esteban that he needed to put more muscle on because he was too thin and looked like he didn’t have the core strength he needed for english style choreography, where Cyril’s feedback had always been vague, a suggestion that  _ something _ was wrong but not what that  _ something  _ was, making it difficult to improve in the way that he wanted.

As Franz had taken him on a tour of the Opera House, he’d seen Pierre and the man from before go right to the orchestra pit, had seen them grin as they’d balled up a piece of paper and thrown it at one of the pianists, who’d simply laughed and thrown it back at them, and then he’d watched them disappear up the stairs to the lighting box. He’d been up there when Franz had taken him to tour that part of the theatre, chatting to one of the lighting technicians and being handed some kind of coffee shop drink by him.

And it was weird, it was like he was seeing the old Pierre, the one who’d been a social butterfly and had seemed to have everything come so easily to him, the one who’d been popular in their early years at school, even though he knew it had only been a year since Pierre had left France.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“It’s Esteban, right?” someone asked him a week or so in, and he’d spun around to see the man he now knew was George Russell, one of the other corps de ballet.

George had won Lausanne two years after Pierre had, he’d been the only british graduate out of the Royal Ballet School, and people in the company said he was a protege of Toto Wolff, their artistic director, and was destined to become an artistic director. And people said the same thing about him that Esteban had felt about Pierre for years - that he was annoyingly talented, but too nice to genuinely hate for being so.

Though it hadn’t exactly panned out that way at the Paris Opera Ballet School.

“Yes?” Esteban had said, and George had looked over his face, like he was trying to figure him out.

“You went to school with Pierre, didn’t you,” said George, more of a statement than a question, and half of him felt guilty immediately, and the other half was enraged that Pierre had obviously been talking about him and what had happened.

“I did,” said Esteban, nodding and keeping his face cool. 

“If you send him back to the way he was when he got here, me and his other mates will make sure they don’t find your body, got it?”

And he’d spotted Pierre’s other friends, had seen him flitting around the Opera House in the time between classes, talking to stagehands and lighting technicians and costume designers, had even seen him wander into the sacred ground of the orchestra pit and give one of the pianists a hug while tapping a little tune out on the piano. He’d seen him walk around hand in hand with his girlfriend, Caterina, who was one of the female members of the corps, and chat to some of the principals like Hamilton and Alonso and Williams, had seen that Pierre was well loved for here in England in a way that he hadn’t been in France.

When Esteban had been given his first role, one of the Hungarian princes in Swan Lake (god, the English  _ loved _ Swan Lake, this was their second year in a row doing it) he’d been assigned Romain Grosjean to coach him, who he knew from instagram stalking was also Pierre’s coach.

And it was like time had turned back when Pierre had walked into the studio with the pianist that he always seemed to go over to, laughing and joking with him, at least until he’d spotted Esteban anyway when his smile had seemed to fade.

Romain’s coaching was like a warmer version of it had been like in Paris, more open with what he actually wanted from them than Cyril had been, but at the same time firm on how important technique and footwork was, and he kept pushing hard the same quirks of the french style of ballet. The teaching was in french too, which felt like a comfort when everything was so strange and changing so quickly for him.

After the class, Pierre had gone over to the pianist, and Esteban had watched them chat quickly. The pianist had given him a quick squeeze before leaving him, and suddenly it had just been him and Pierre in a big empty studio, and the silence after the click of the door closing had been deafening.

  
“I think it’s time we spoke, isn’t it?” said Pierre, walking over to him and sitting down cross legged in front of him.

“I guess so,” said Esteban, and he could see Pierre sigh.

“I thought you said that coming to England was a terrible idea?” 

“Well it was. You didn’t speak any English,” Esteban pointed out. “It’s worked out well for you though. You look better.”   
  
“Better than when you decided you’d rather be popular and leave me alone?” asked Pierre, raising an eyebrow. “Or better than when I was having a shit final year at school and you didn’t speak to me other than to tell me I’d made the wrong decision?”

“Better than both,” said Esteban simply. 

“Not exactly hard,” said Pierre. “So why did you come to England anyway? I thought you were obsessed with the Opera.”

“Turned out you were right about it,” said Esteban, and he could see Pierre’s face twitch slightly, like he was trying to figure out what he’d actually said about the Opera, other than that he didn’t want to go. “You said it was better here than getting eaten alive in the Opera.”

“Huh. Don’t remember,” said Pierre. “So why  _ here _ ? Why England?”   
  


“Because it worked out well for you. So maybe it will for me. You don’t own England, Pierre.”

“You thought I was stupid for picking it.”

“I did. And maybe I was wrong about that,” said Esteban, and he could tell Pierre had been expecting him to fight about it, to reignite the fight that they’d never spoken about, and that the fact he’d not done that had confused him. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


He’d thought that watching Pierre’s ascent would fill him with the same horrible jealousy that he’d felt at school, but for some reason, it  _ didn’t _ . The Royal Ballet wasn’t such a pressure cooker, there was a knowledge that promotions  _ would _ come, and he could see now how hard Pierre worked these days, that he was always warming up a good hour before company class, or in the gym, and even in his free time he was always with someone from the Opera House, throwing himself into company life completely.

Even when Sebastian Vettel had turned up and picked Pierre out to choreograph a whole new ballet on, he hadn’t actually felt jealous - it helped that it hadn’t been the type of choreography Esteban liked anyway, but he’d also seen that Pierre did deserve it.

  
Plus the compliments that Pierre got were different from the one Esteban got, except for people praising their french technique, and it felt good to be treated as an individual, not like he had to try and get out of Pierre’s shadow or put Pierre into his.   
  
He’d even started to like Pierre again. They weren’t close, and he was pretty sure they’d never be close again, Pierre had other people for that now and Esteban had Antonio, but they could get along in classes with Romain, or if they needed to dance together, and it wasn’t awkward anymore.

Charles Leclerc had upended that though, had accused him and Pierre of doing nothing to help Anthoine, because he didn’t  _ know _ , the same way that most people didn’t know about Anthoine - he’d spoken about him briefly to Antonio when they’d started sharing a flat, and Antonio had said Pierre had never mentioned him to him, and he was pretty sure that Pierre hadn’t mentioned Anthoine to  _ anyone _ , because Pierre still couldn’t speak even to him when they went down to Lyon to visit Anthoine’s grave each christmas, would just look shellshocked and stay silent, and here was someone Anthoine had never so much as mentioned to them accusing him and Pierre of leaving him alone.

And Esteban had remembered the words, “ _ Look after him, okay?”  _ and done just that, had unleashed everything he had at Charles Leclerc while Pierre had stayed behind him silent as ever, and done just that, right up until he’d heard Verstappen’s new boyfriend taking Pierre back into the studio to keep an eye on him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Can I ask a really stupid question?”

Esteban looked at Lando, raising an eyebrow. They’d been together for a few months now, and slowly, Esteban was starting to feel loved, like he’d always wanted to feel.

  
“Sure,” he said, as he helped Lando shift a box of props over to the side of the stage.

“What is it with Pierre?” asked Lando, and Esteban looked at him quizzically.

“Which part?”

“Like,” said Lando, like he was trying to think how to word it. “People go on about him. But all I see is a guy I know gets clumsy as hell after two drinks and falls over all the time. I know he’s good and stuff, but why are people obsessed with him?”

“I thought you liked Pierre?” laughed Esteban.

“I love him,” said Lando firmly. “But George goes on about him. And George is meant to be really good, isn’t he?”

“They’re both good,” shrugged Esteban. “Pierre’s a bit special though. He always has been.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i'm over on tumblr.com @pierregasiy!


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